Two degrees to SensorWeb

The NASA EO-1 sensor Web enabled (SWE) data node is offering many Web services using standards developed under the auspices of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Some of these services have a restricted access (such as the Sensor Planning Service used to task the EO-1 satellite). Depending on the customer initiating the scene, access to some images may also be restricted. The EO-1 SWE is integrated within the NASA SensorWeb Community with many other nodes to support a variety of users from scientists to first responders. These users belong to many different communities that are somehow connected to the SensorWeb. These ad-hoc connections are unfortunately exceptions rather that the norm. They happened due to special relationships at the edges of the global social network. There is ample room for improvement. To be effective during international disasters and relief efforts, many small communities need to come together and exchange information. Ranging from the California Fire fighter department, the Kenyan Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), the Central America CATHALAC, NASA SERVIR and DOD AFRICOM, these diverse communities need to be able to access information very quickly to respond to disasters. Their distance (or degree of separation) within the social network to the service providers will limit the actual timeliness and flow of the information, assuming that a path can even be found between these hungry data consumers and scarce data providers. To be globally relevant for these communities, a SWE needs to be no further than a two-degree of separation between end-users (worldwide) and unrestricted access to assets and data. This is the next OGC and NASA challenge. This paper presents our current security resource-oriented architecture (ROA) approach to the problem initiated under the OGC OWS-6 interoperability demonstration and its application to international programs such as GEOSS. Temporary trust needs be created on-demand to- allow end-users in remote regions of the world to potentially task a satellite based on roles given to them by their organizations in accordance with pre-arranged policies between the various hubs of this distributed federation. An innovative hybrid security protocol is presented to achieve ad-hoc collaboration across trusting organizations for disaster management and relief efforts.